by Jack J. Lee
Over the years, I’ve made a lot expert swordsmen look stupid with my little garden tools. The SaLTs had told Rachel that the Director’s favorite weapon was a samurai sword. He used it to kill zombies and had even decapitated a vampire with one. I didn’t want to hurt the Director. It made sense to use my cultivators.
Before I woke the Director, I examined his sleeping quarters. He was adorable. He was sleeping with his sword. His story didn’t make sense. Guys who sleep with swords don’t take civil service exams.
He also had a large caliber revolver next to him. I took the handgun and placed it out-of-the-way. I then tapped him in the forehead with the hilt of a cultivator. He woke instantly. With one motion he drew his sword and lunged at me. He was quick. It was a good thing that I was expecting this move.
It struck me how ridiculous it was to be fighting someone with a sword outside a dojo or a cheesy action flick. I wanted to say, ‘Your Salt Lake style is good but my kung fu is better.’ I resisted this temptation.
Within a couple seconds, it became clear that he didn’t have much training. He was quick, strong, and coordinated, but natural talent only gets you so far against a skilled opponent. He tried to compensate for his lack of training with speed but our relative differences in experience and the physics of our weapons were against him. He was in the upper end of the bell curve when it came to reflexes but so was I.
Short stubby weapons like mine are faster to the mark than longer weapons. I was familiar with his weapon and he wasn’t with mine. It didn’t take long to convince him that he was outmatched and that I wasn’t interested in hurting him. I explained to him that the FLDS at New Zion had no part in the conflict he had with the Colorado City assholes. I think he believed me.
When I left his room, I made sure to close the door behind me. I jumped up to grab my ladder. I used the momentum of my leap to flip myself upside down. I braced my feet up on some pipes over my head and used one hand to pull the ceiling tile back into place just as the Director opened the door and walked below me.
I tucked the rope ladder up in the pipes where it couldn’t easily be seen and quickly made my way to the attic. I used a utility blade to cut the webbing from trusses and then pulled them out of the utility space. I grabbed my backpack and then went up the hole I had cut into the roof. I placed the roof plug back into the hole and waited until the guards heard the commotion in the clubhouse. I was impressed; they didn’t leave their positions.
It’s difficult to see something you’re not looking for. The guards were focused on the commotion in the clubhouse. They were looking at the doors and windows where they could see lights and movement. I jumped from the roof into a corner of the building where it was dark. I was about 10 feet off the ground when I jumped.
The banana roll is used by military paratroopers. Military chutes come down fast and with as much force as jumping off a ten foot wall. If you try to land on your feet at this speed you can break your ankles. If you roll forward, you’re likely to knee yourself in the face. To do a banana roll right, you bend your whole body to the side making the shape of a banana. I landed on the side of my right foot. I rolled on my outside right calf, thigh and hip and then onto my back.
I bounced up immediately and headed toward the rooftop site I had prepared earlier. It was dark; I was glad I scouted the route before in the daylight. I didn’t come across any zombies on my way to the roof and climbed up the side of the building without any problems. A life worth living is always based on a series of calculated risks. Predators are drawn to herds of prey. I bet that vampires would be too focused on the SaLT encampment to pay attention to a solitary human like me. I rolled the Mylar blanket that I had used previously as a hammock around me and immediately fell asleep.
Chapter 28: Ari Levin, April 13th, Year 1
I woke up at first light. It had been a long time since I last slept in the field. At thirty, I was getting too old to be sleeping on a hard surface. It reminded me of the days when I was on a special ops team and why I didn’t miss them. There is a certain kind of personality that is attracted to black ops and it is competitive and egotistical. Everyone is out to prove that they’re the alpha dog. There is no way I would have taken the time to do some yoga exercises if any of my old teammates had been around. With all the hanging I had done yesterday combined with sleeping outside on a roof without any padding, I felt like I was eighty.
There are advantages to being on a team, but I’ve never regretted going solo. When I first decided to become self-employed, I told myself that it was because of the money. Over the years I’ve realized that wasn’t entirely true. Yes, the money was better as a mercenary, but also I got tired of putting on a constant act. I’m a natural born liar. That’s why I’m good undercover; it’s easy for me to assume a false identity and personality.
The problem is that men like me tend to lie to everyone, including ourselves. To remain sane, I have to take breaks from being undercover; I knew enough now to make sure I had a sanctum where I could escape. Illusions are what you use against other people. If you make the mistake of using illusions against yourself in my line of work, you don’t live very long.
I went solo because I got tired of faking being a hypermasculine guy. I loved the excitement of being on a government sanctioned assassination team but I hated never being able to completely relax. Even when I wasn’t on a mission, I felt like was undercover. I knew how guys on my old team would have reacted if they saw me in a standing bow-pulling pose. You stand on one leg, position your upper body so it is parallel to the ground, stretch out one arm in front of you and use the other arm to grab the foot you have in the air and pull upwards hyperextending your back. I looked like a ballerina; the only thing missing was a tutu.
This pose feels sinfully good when your back is tight. The sun was rising. I was on a roof in almost empty town. It was easy to forget about zombies, vampires, and psychotic wives while I went through a series of yoga stances under an open sky. As I stretched and meditated under the rising sun, I realized that for the first time in my life, I was homesick; I missed my wives and kids. New Zion had become my home. I was no longer pretending to be the leader of New Zion; I was their leader. I was no longer living a lie. It took an apocalypse for me to figure out that home is where you’re loved.
After a half hour, I could move without pain. I climbed off the roof and got on my motorcycle and headed back to Zion. I rode down the city streets back toward the highway. I had to stay entirely focused. I’d been this way before but that didn’t guarantee that the route was safe.
Going home from a mission is when you’re most likely to make a fatal mistake. The adrenalin rush is gone; it’s easy to get complacent. I focused on staying alert. My motorcycle could easily be heard for blocks. I had to pick my way between abandoned vehicles and buildings where a zombie could easily ambush me. In some spots, cars on the street were packed so tight I had to ride on the sidewalks. Every window and door I passed was a potential ambush. The SaLT Lake troops had cleaned out most of the zombies in Cedar City but they hadn’t gone by foot throughout the town.
I was almost out of the town when a zombie surprised me by reaching out from a broken car window. I grabbed me as I rode by, pulling me off my bike. As I fell, I palmed my new favorite hideaway stiletto. It was a thin 1 cm thick wood chisel. After my fight with the vampire, I wanted a weapon that could penetrate an armored skull. While still in the air, I stabbed the zombie in the head with my chisel. I landed off balance on my ass. I lay there for awhile before I got up.
My motorcycle wasn’t damaged. Within a few minutes I was back to the highway. I crossed it and went back through the desert to New Zion. When I arrived my entire family was waiting. It was good to be home.
I had all my people gather to the central compound. I explained that I had gone into the desert by myself to pray. Last night I had a revelation. Our Heavenly Father had been testing us. He wanted to see what we would do with the bounty he had given us. After the destructi
on of the sinners, we had been given the opportunity to embrace all our brothers and sisters. We, in New Zion, had done this and were blessed. The FLDS in Hildale and Colorado City had not and soon our Father’s wrath would be upon them.
We needed to prepare for another cleansing. We needed to store more food and to work more quickly on our fortifications. I had an obligation to try to save the FLDS in Hildale and Colorado City. I had to try to convince them to change their ways.
I would visit them more often. Whenever I was away, Graydon and Lavel were in charge. I wanted fifty volunteers to act as my bodyguards in Colorado City.
Chapter 29: Ari Levin, April 28th, Year 1
It took two weeks to build a fortified building on the outskirts of Colorado City. It would have been a disaster to stay with Rachel.
Colorado City didn’t have running water or electricity. The FLDS compensated by using slave labor to haul water and everything else that used to be done by machinery. We used gasoline to fuel lamps throughout our new building and brought in barrels of water by truck.
I spoke at sacrament services in both Hildale and Colorado City. I preached that everyone who had survived the outbreak was beloved by our Father. I told the assholes that God had sent the outbreak to punish the sinners and that in the near future additional punishments would rain down on those to refused to listen to his wishes. My sermons didn’t go down well. My bodyguards were necessary.
I finally had time to go through all the surveillance that I had gotten on Rachel. I took the time to listen to the actual sound recordings of Rachel questioning Sergeant Rockwell. Hiram was lucky. Rachel decided to play with his dangly bits rather than cutting them off—-with her you never knew.
In the last couple of weeks, I spent about half the nights in Colorado City. Every day I was up here, I made sure to meet with Rachel. Outwardly we both pretended that we had a great marriage.
My meeting with Director Jones had gone fairly well and he seemed like a reasonable man. I think he believed me when I told him that New Zion and I were not threats to him or to Salt Lake City.
Sooner or later the Colorado City FLDS had to be taken out of the equation. I knew that I would get brownie points from the SaLTs if I rescued their men. But I had to weigh the value of those brownie points against the benefit of having the SaLTs remove my problem followers. I decided that my best option was to act like I wanted to help the SaLTs but to do everything in my power to provoke a war. I continued to give sermons praising the brotherhood of all men. Rachel took the hint. She took great pleasure in feeding the SaLTs one by one to their fallen angel.
Supposedly Jones had taken out a zombie with nothing but his bare hands. I had taken out a one legged, poisoned vampire that had recently taken three bullets to the head. There was a slight possibility that a SaLT could get the better of a vampire. If one did, I wasn’t opposed to saving him and the rest of the remaining SaLTs.
Within a couple days of my meeting with Director Jones, SaLT snipers began taking out any FLDS that stepped out of the Hildale and Colorado City limits. The snipers attacked from so far away they couldn’t be seen. The FLDS found out that you can’t fight an enemy that you can’t find. They compensated for their loss of territory by feeding the captured SaLTs to their vampire.
To the FLDS, each SaLT who was killed by a vampire was proof that the Salt Lake forces were made up of sinners who were destined to die. They scrambled to put up additional fortifications. They dug up their streets to make them impassable for the APCs. They swore that Hildale and Colorado City would become death traps for the SaLTs.
Every time I watched a SaLT take on a vampire, I realized how lucky I had been that the vampire I had fought hand-to-hand had not been at its best. I saw eight SaLTs die fighting. None of them broke. None of them begged.
The last SaLT to die had been been beaten so badly he could barely stand. His name was Wayne Lockland. When the guards pushed him into the sacrificial cage, he landed on his hands and knees. Slowly, with great difficulty, he got up. He looked at us and laughed with contempt.
Wayne Lockland hadn’t said a word but everyone who watched him die was forced to admire him. He died a dangerous man; he hadn’t let the assholes turn him into a victim. My bodyguards were FLDS. They had grown up with the same people who were forcing the SaLTs into the feeding cage. It was fascinating to see how different they had become. I could see that they hated what they were watching. They weren’t seeing sinners being punished. They were watching good men die. I felt bad about letting Wayne die. Unfortunately his death was useful. My men were really beginning to hate their brethren in Colorado City.
There was a story behind that beating. Here in Colorado City, I didn’t have access to any of my surveillance. It was too risky to take my gear out of my sanctum. It drove me nuts that I was so close to the action without any of my usual intel.
Chapter 30, Ari Levin, May 2nd, Year 1
Once I found out that the last two remaining SaLTs had been beaten badly and that one of them had a gunshot wound in his left arm, I sent George Smith along with Nephi and Landon Daniels to the SaLT encampment. They traveled with a white flag. Their mission was to let Mark Jones know that although I was trying to save the remaining prisoners I didn’t think the odds were good. Graydon wanted to send scouts out to see what the Salt Lake forces were doing. I shot that idea down quickly. Gathering intel is an aggressive move. The chances of one of our scouts being seen or worse was too high.
I chose George as my ambassador because he was a wily old bird who was used to negotiating for the Paiutes and because he wasn’t FLDS. I wanted the Director to see that non-FLDS were doing well in New Zion. In another time or place George and I might have been friends. I got the sense that he and I had a similar sense of humor and that he liked playing roles as much as I do. He loved putting on the old stoic Indian with a supernatural connection to the environment act. He was good enough to fool almost everyone he met.
I didn’t buy it when he pulled the wise old man of nature crap; I got the feeling that he thought I was pulling a fast one too.
The truce party left on a day that was perfect PPC flying weather, bright blue sky with low wind. They were picked out by a flying SaLT Scout by the time they reached the highway. They were still miles out from Cedar City when the Director drove out on an APC to meet them. It had been too much to expect the Director to let my men see their camp.
George said that the Director listened to what they had to say without giving much away. The other SaLTs were pissed. I’d been trying to listen in on the SaLT radio transmissions. Unfortunately, all their communications were in code. Codes that can be used easily in the field are always breakable. But, it takes a lot of math to break codes. The skill set that makes a good assassin usually doesn’t include an understanding of higher level mathematics. Jones told George that he would stay in contact with me on a particular radio frequency. When all the SaLTs were killed, he wanted me to radio him.
George ended our conversation by saying, “Prophet Levin, I hope you have a working radio”, in a deadpan stoic Indian voice. He had a twinkle in his eye. He was inviting me to reply like a pompous prophet.
I smiled and replied, “I’m sure God will provide.”
I saw Sergeant Rockwell for the first time when he was taken to the sacrificial cage. It would have never occurred to me to sacrifice my own arm to kill an opponent. I had to fight to keep a straight face when he called me an asshole and then collapsed unconscious.
I stood up. “Brothers and Sisters, this man has released our fallen angel from its prison on Earth. We have seen proof that he has been ordained by our Heavenly Father.”
The Colorado City FLDS were in shock. They had doubts about whether I was the true prophet. They believed Darren Jeffries’ prophecies. Only those favored by our Heavenly Father could kill a fallen angel. Their views of the SaLTs were shaken; they could no longer call them sinners. I had my men take Hiram out of the cage and get the other SaLT, Max Sutter. Even though
it was dark, I had my men ready our truck so we could leave immediately for New Zion. We had a trailer that was pulled by a full sized truck that could fit all of my men. We got out of town before the Colorado City assholes could react.
When we got home, I had Hiram and Max rushed into my tower. After I met with my wives and let them know what was going on, I went into my sanctum and radioed the Director. I let him know that I had his men in New Zion. Max was going to be fine. Hiram was severely injured but I was hopeful that he could be nursed back to health.
Chapter 31: Hiram Rockwell, May 4th to May 11th, Year 1
I woke up and saw the face of an angel. For a second I thought I was in Heaven. The severity of the pain in my back and at my left elbow soon convinced me that I was still alive. I looked down and saw a stump a few inches past my elbow.
“Oh you’re awake. Sergeant Rockwell, my name is Alice Levin. You’ve been here for two days. You are safe here.”
I whispered, “What happened to Max?”
“Oh, he’s fine. I’ll send word to have him come up as soon as possible.”
I fell back asleep. I woke up to the sound of knocking at my door. It took a few tries before I could say “Come in” loud enough to be heard.
“Hey Sarge, it’s good to see you awake.”
“Max, what’s going on?”
“You killed a vampire by stuffing your hand down its throat. That was hardcore!”
“What are we doing here?”
“The FLDS believe that only the ordained can kill a vampire. They think vampires are fallen angels. When you killed one, it proved that you weren’t a sinner. We’re in Prophet Levin’s house. As soon as it’s workable, they’re going to release us back to the Director. He and rest of the SaLTs are up in Cedar City.”
